Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Design and Development of Small Internal Combustion Engines.... IMechE conference in IOM, May-June 1978....

I purchased this book, a compilation of the papers read to the IMechE conference held in Douglas, Isle of Man, on 31 May - 2nd June 1978, when I was browsing a bookshop in Auckland NZ in the early 1980s....
It was listed at NZ$70.95, but remaindered at NZ$10.
I purchased one as I said and drove around to Ken McIntosh of McIntosh Racing's workshop on the way to the airport to catch a flight to Sydney.
When he saw it and I mentioned there was still one left he begged me to go back and get it for him...which I duly did.
The cover and contents pages are illustrated .....
It contains some interesting scientific papers, not the least from Jack Williams of AMC on the development of the 7R AJS after he took over as development engineer.
Some items from the paper are included below.
Another interesting paper was from B.Johnson the technical manager of Amal Ltd., detailing development of the production carburettors for motorcycles.
The section I found interesting, and the relevant page is illustrated, is a comment on the Mk.1 Amal concentric carb.
Seems, because it doesn't have a jet block and so has an irregular bore shape, the bhp available when it is used is reduced by 2% - 4% usually at the peak torque area....
My memory when I was racing was that riders couldn't change their amal monobloc carbs for a concentric fast enough...
Hmm....
Just how you would get one of these , would I feel, be difficult, as I can't ever remember seeing a copy for sale since then.
I guess a check on the internet may find it on an IMechE or some such related site.
The publication was...
ISBN 0 85298 394 8
ImechE Conference Publications 1978-5
Left click on images to enlarge....










































































































































































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